The present disclosure generally relates to automated mattress manufacturing, and more particularly, to a scheduling process for automated mattress manufacturing.
In general, mattress manufacturing is complicated due to the wide variety of materials and configurations thereof that can be used to each of several components of a mattress. For example, mattress may include an innercore that has pocketed coils and/or one or more types of foam material. The material, size, shape, and density of the coils of the innercore can vary within a single mattress as well as across various mattress types. In addition, mattresses include a topper layer which can include multiple layers of foam material, with the types and arrangement of the various layers varying widely. Furthermore, mattress includes a quilted topper that can include multiple layers textiles and foam material, with the types and arrangement of the various layers varying widely. As a result of the large number of available mattress configurations, mattresses are traditionally made on an on-demand basis, i.e., a mattress is not manufactured until it has been ordered by a customer.
Traditional processes for manufacturing the mattress include numerous steps that each requires a significant amount of manual labor typically organized in batch production. Recently, automated manufacturing processes have been developed which drastically reduces the amount of manual labor required in each of the steps of the mattress manufacturing process. As a result, the speed at which each of the manufacturing steps can be performed has been reduced. The automated manufacturing processes include the use of a variety of specialty machines that have each been developed to perform one of the numerous manufacturing steps. Each of the numerous steps varies in complexity and requires a different amount of time to perform. Due to the large number of possible mattress configurations, one or more of the automated manufacturing steps must modified, or changed over, to switch from producing one mattress configuration to another.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method of scheduling the automated manufacturing mattresses with varying configurations to maximize throughput and to reduce down time and material waste.